Cornell to receive $1.2 Million for Biofuels Combustion Research

A team headed by Prof. C. Thomas Avedisian (MAE) will receive $1.2M from The Department of Energy's (DOE) Co-Optimization of Fuels and Engines (Co-Optima) program for research that contributes to accelerating the introduction of affordable, scalable, and sustainable high-performance fuels for use in high-efficiency, low-emission engines. Funding will come from DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office and Vehicle Technologies Office. The Co-Optima program is investing a combined $7 million in eight university teams to maximize energy savings and on-road vehicle performance, while dramatically reducing transportation-related petroleum consumption and harmful emissions.

Cornell Co-PIs on the project include Prof. Perrine Pepiot (MAE) and Ivan Keresztes (Chemistry and Chemical Biology), along with a team from the University of California, San Diego. The team will examine the combustion characteristics of several diesel/biofuel blends to understand how such fuels burn compared to traditional petroleum-based fuels to help design cleaner, more efficient combustion engines. The team's approach will combine detailed experimental studies of droplet combustion dynamics with development of combustion chemistry of complex fuel blends and their surrogates, and detailed numerical modeling to validate the combustion chemistries. According to Prof. Avedisian, "Our research has the potential to influence an activity that almost every one of us engages in on a daily basis: turning on the ignition of our cars and driving down the road. By developing the inputs to robust engine solvers, which this research emphasizes, more efficient engine designs powered by biofuel blends can more readily be developed."